Title contenders Syria lived up to expectations, blanking Kyrgyzstan 2-0 in the second match of the Nehru Cup international football tournament in Delhi on Thursday. Syria, at No 95 the highest FIFA-ranked side in the five-nation tournament, dominated for most of the match and could have won by a bigger margin had not they missed some clear chances at the floodlit Ambedkar stadium.
Bajrang Punia (men's 65kg) posted an impressive victory on the penultimate day of the Asian Wrestling Championship on Saturday.
Anil Kumar also faced a similar fate during the quarter-finals of 85kg, going down to Japan's Atsushi Matsumoto 0-7, but was fortunate to enter the bronze medal round after the Japanese grappler ensured a place in the gold medal round.
Harpreet bagged his second successive bronze medal at the Asian Championship after defeating Junjie Na of China 3-2.
India, currently ranked 132nd in the FIFA world rankings, have never played in the World Cup finals and kick off the latest phase of their attempt to qualify for the Asian Cup on Tuesday when they take on Myanmar in Yangon.
Shot putter Manpreet Kaur and long distance runner G Lakshmanan grabbed gold medals on a remarkable opening day for India at the 22nd Asian Athletics Championships as the hosts won seven medals to sit atop the medal tally, in Bhubaneswar, on Thursday.
Riding on her bronze medal finish at the Rio Olympic Games, Sakshi Malik entered the top-five in the latest UWW (United World Wrestling) rankings, rising to a career-best 4th position in women's 58kg category. Previously unranked, Sakshi, who became the first Indian woman wrestler to win an olympic medal, claimed the position in the latest list.
As we prepare to cruise into the New Year, Rediff.com gives you a glance back, through photos, into all the sporting moments that made the last 12 months memorable.
Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Wednesday felicitated Rio Olympics bronze medal winner and wrestler Sakshi Malik.
The first Indian woman grappler to win an Olympic medal, a bronze in the 58kg freestyle at Rio, she was the obvious choice as P V Sindhu, India's only other medallist, who bagged a silver in the women's singles badminton, left for Hyderabad on Saturday.
Olympic bronze medal-winning wrestler Sakshi Malik is all set to be conferred with the country's highest sporting honour, the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award.
A windfall of cash rewards and incentives, amounting to at least Rs 3.5 crore, fittingly awaits Rio Olympic bronze-medallist Sakshi Malik.
'The passing away of his mother just days before the premiere of his first film, his controversy with terrorism, his relationship with his father, his best friend, the women in his life... everything was shocking for me.'
Being attended by nearly 40 countries and leading groupings like the European Union, the annual conference of the Heart of Asia -- Istanbul Process is deliberating on various challenges facing Afghanistan, including revival of a peace process in the conflict-ridden country.
The victory kept alive the Central Asians' hopes of making the final in the Nehru Cup football tournament.
A summary of sports events and sports persons, who made news on Thursday
Thirteen people were taken into custody in Istanbul and nine in the coastal city of Izmir, officials said.
Baichung Bhutia celebrated his 100th match appearance for the country by scoring one and setting up another goal in India's 2-1 win over Kyrgyzstan in a round-robin fixture of the Nehru Cup International football tournament in New Delhi, on Sunday. India thus bounced back into a final berth contention in the five-nation tournament after losing to Lebanon 0-1 in the opening match at the Ambedkar Stadium.
But how much has the national team actually improved?
Putin said India will become a full-fledged member of the SCO in a week.
Suddenly the sands are shifting and even friends are acting strange.
After bringing home just two medals from the Rio Olympics, India needs to be realistic in its preparations for the 2020 Tokyo Games and should narrow its focus to a handful of sports, says former All England badminton champion Prakash Padukone. P.V. Sindhu's silver medal in the badminton women's singles and a bronze from wrestler Sakshi Malik at the Rio Games was considered a sorry return for a nation of 1.3 billion people. India have won a total of 28 medals since first competing at the Olympics in 1900 but a government think tank has come up with a strategy it hopes will help the country to 50 medals in 2024, including prioritising 10 sports.
Danti is highly focused on diplomatic entities. It may already have full access to internal networks in Indian government organisations.
India will be up against UAE, Saudi Arabia and Iran in the group stages of AFC U-16 Championship as the draw for the event, which will act as a dress rehearsal for next year's FIFA U-17 World Cup, was held amid much fanfare in Panaji, Goa on Thursday. The tournament begins on September 15 and matches will be held at Fatorda and Bambolim Stadium in Goa. The final is slated to be played on October 2. The top two teams from each groups will qualify for the quarter-finals. In case India, who are in Group A, advance to the semi-finals, the winner of play-off 3 will also qualify for FIFA U-17 World Cup. Conducted by Shin Mangil, Director of Competitions, Asian Football Confederation, the ceremony was attended by Goa Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar, Secretary of All India Football Federation Kushal Das and U-17 World Cup Tournament Director Javier Ceppi among others. The 16 participating teams were divided into four groups.
Left to compete within an hour of reaching here from China, promising sprinter Dutee Chand won the gold in women's 100m sprint event in the Taiwan Open Athletics Championships on Thursday. Dutee competed in the 100m heats within an hour of reaching Taiwan from Beijing and five hours later ran the finals which she won in 11.50secs to bag the gold. Her timing was far below the Olympics qualification standard of 11.32 secs. Long jumper Ankit Sharma leapt 7.67m on his last attempt to also seal a gold medal. Dutee was part of the national record breaking women's 4x100m relay quartet which finished fourth in the IAAF World Challenge event in Beijing yesterday and she few from the Chinese capital to Taiwan where she reached two hours before the start of her event.
The Rio Olympics bronze medalist shared the stage with Bollywood actress Sonakshi Sinha during the Whisper 'Like a Girl' campaign. When asked about the recent trend of making biopics on sportsmen, Sonakshi said that she will be thrilled to star as Sakshi if at all a movie was made based on the wrestler's life.
It's a sport that is synonymous with power for most, but India's Rio Olympics bronze medallist wrestler Sakshi Malik says her achievements on the mat are not just because of brawn but also brain.
A summary of sports events and persons who made news on Friday
'People taunted me, saying 'You are a woman, why are you wrestling?'
Wrestler Sandeep Tomar secured an Olympic quota place for India in the men's 57kg freestyle category with a bronze-medal finish on the final day of the 1st World Olympic Qualifying tournament in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.
China on Monday said India's membership bid in the NSG has become "more complicated" under the "new circumstances" as it again ruled out backing New Delhi's entry in the grouping, saying there should be non-discriminatory solution applicable to all non-NPT signatory countries.
A grand welcome awaits Rio Olympics bronze medallist wrestler Sakshi Malik when she arrives home on Wednesday, with hectic preparations underway to give her a rousing reception at her village Mokhra Khas in Rohtak district. When Sakshi touches down at Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi at around 3:50 a.m. tomorrow, as many as five ministers of the BJP Government in Haryana will be there to receive her.
Sakshi thanked Olympic medalists Sushil Kumar and Yogeshwar Dutt for showing wrestling the way.
After ending India's agonising wait for an Olympic medal at the Rio Games with a bronze medal, Indian women wrestler Sakshi Malik said it was the result of her 12 years of persistent hard work.
Sakshi Malik ended India's frustrating medal drought with a dramatic bronze-winning effort on Day 12 of the Rio Olympic Games on Wednesday.
Aziz also attended a dinner where he exchanged pleasantries with PM Modi.
'Gwadar has the potential to facilitate PLAN's operations in the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean.' 'Reports of China setting up electronic eavesdropping posts at Gwadar to monitor US and Indian naval activity and shipping traffic through the Straits of Hormuz and the Arabian Sea lend credence to this,' says former RA&W officer Jayadeva Ranade.
Identifying terror emanating from Pakistan as the "greatest threat" to regional peace and stability, India and Afghanistan have said that setting up an effective counter-terror framework to deal with the challenge will be a major focus at the two-day Heart of Asia conference beginning Saturday.
Hardeep sprung a surprise by booking an Olympic quota place for India in Greco-Roman wrestling, which is not the country's forte, after making the 98kg category final on the last day of the Asian Olympic Qualification championship, in Astana, on Sunday.
Nepal have been kicked out of the Asian Football Confederation's under-16 championships in India next year after being found guilty of fielding an over-age player in the qualifying tournament.